


You Know Just Where to Find Me

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fallen Angels, Fallen Castiel, Hurt Sam Winchester, M/M, Road Trips, car theft, snack cakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 06:16:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel meets creatures he's never fought before. Like Hondas. And the Internet. And Wyoming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Know Just Where to Find Me

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place after [08.23 Sacrifice](http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=8.23_Sacrifice).  
> So, spoilers for basically everything *~*~spoiler confetti~*~*
> 
>  **Warnings** for dread, anxiety, internal panics, and vomiting. I apologize in advance. I ended up working out some shit in this that, I must admit, even I would need to prepare myself to read.
> 
> I do not own the rights to these characters, setting, show, etc. No harm is intended.

At first it's confusing. He can't pinpoint exactly where he is, but he thought a general knowledge of the country would allow him to at least ballpark it. Then he realizes it's a border town. Castiel is actually in two places, not just one.

The Idaho-Wyoming border.

He avoids the site of every possible collision of angel and earth that he witnessed when watching them fall. He wants to go to them, but there's no way of knowing how one of his fallen brothers or sisters will react to him.

Just as his perfect sense of location has been wiped away, Cas is aware that his bones and muscles no longer hold the compacted celestial power of his true form. He avoids every hint of life in the woods while seeking the security of streetlamps and sidewalks. There's no weapon on him that he can use for defense. While he can fight, he would be fighting with uncharacteristically breakable skin and bones. He remembers what it's like to bleed without the ability to knit skin back together at a mere thought. He is not eager to repeat the experience. He is also not ready to meet another angel, newly human, and harm them. There is a certain advantage to having fought in this breakable form before: He already knows how to kill in it.

His "true form" is that of a human now. Everything ethereal has been severed. Coaxed out of him and corked away, unreachable. A piece of him, somewhere around his center, gropes for it still, and in not finding it, clenches and panics.

He has to stop to breathe, but it comes back to him. It gets easier. It's dreadful that his insides remember what this is like from the last time they settled into this human body and melded. Only rather than being brought slowly up to a boil, this time he was thrown into the sun.

His skin touches everything, and in a million-million ways, more than last time even, he _feels_.

Castiel walks, then trudges through a light rain and mud, into the nearest town. He'd seen it on his way down, knew the direction. Everything is so sleepy and shut up and dark that he knows none of his fallen brethren have found the place for themselves yet.

It's not a proper city, not even an expansive town, but still it shakes him. The streets are lit, but now, each time he comes to a new place, he'll be walking into the dark. Each new experience comes with an emotional flavor. Fear, interest, caution, or something else like determination. He needs to do this, but he stays hidden, under the trees for a little while. He has approached from the woods. They back up to a barbeque restaurant. There's split wood, coal, propane.

Why is he here? Where does he even begin? What is the goal? What can he possibly _do_?

Cas kneels, breathes. Licks rainwater from his lips. Starts from the top.

He is Castiel. He is a man now. His pockets are empty; he has nothing to that name.

He has nothing in the world but the clothes he wears.

(That's not right.)

Cas is quiet, listening. There's nothing to hear but the rain. But those words, he decides, are not untrue.

There are his hands. There is the tactical advantage of being a seasoned soldier. There's all he's learned about humans. There's the fake way that the Winchesters pretend that they're _people_ when they wear ties and carry badges. Castiel has shared some of that experience. He knows how you start a case: You find the victims, do your research, investigate. You stop what's wrong.

To begin, he has to orient himself. Has to know what he needs, get it, use it. Research. Investigate.

The windows of the restaurant are dark. It's very early in the morning. Cas shakes the back door and it is locked. He could go inside and seek weapons, but what?

Knives, he supposes.

He moves on. There are other stores, even in small town Idaho, which might be useful.

There is a hardware store, but no gun shop that he can see. There are other shops. A feed store, a veterinary clinic, a store with farm equipment. He thinks about walking further. He doesn't wander the sparse streets for too long. It's better not to be seen. It's better to try to get going as soon as he can. He goes back to the hardware store.

There aren't many vehicles on the street here. Only two. One which looks like it might belong to the store, and a sort of camper which he must assume has an occupant. Better to break into the store or the van first? He chooses the van. If it truly doesn't work, he's got no way to get out of town quickly after stealing from the hardware store, assuming the building has an alarm system.

The driver's side door is locked, and so are the back doors, but the passenger door is unlocked, likely left that way by accident. He crawls to the front seat and sits behind the wheel.

While he's perfectly aware of the mechanics of _driving_ a car, starting it is an issue. Dean had keys to his own car, but when he stole cars, he did not usually have the keys for them. Castiel inspects the dashboard and underneath the steering wheel and tries to remember how that worked. Nothing really comes to him. He had watched but not really _observed_. He feels under the steering column for wires. Nothing. He's not sure what he's doing.

So he doesn't have a ride. He turns to look into the back of the van and sees various tools hanging around. Nothing big or incredibly useful. He takes a heavy iron wrench and a sharp screwdriver, puts them in his pockets. He remembers that sometimes there were guns and cell phones in the Impala's glove box. Back in the passenger seat, he searches there and finds a crumbling two-pack of striped snack cakes, a tiny flashlight, and a road flare amongst paperwork and other detritus. He takes the flashlight and the flare. After some thought, he also takes the snack cakes.

He stands on the sidewalk in front of the hardware store for a while. If there is an alarm in the business and he has to escape on foot, he likely won't make it far. This town is spread out, with entire fields between buildings. And Americans are fond of guns, especially this far north. Better to keep going. Deeper into the valley, there are more buildings, spots of civilization.

He walks further into Idaho.

Just before dawn, cars become more frequent. A truck stops for him when he gives a hopeful little wave from the side of the road. The man has a hound in the back of his cab and he wants to talk about Jesus Christ. To Cas, it is a peculiar choice of conversation. The driver says he witnessed a man "born from nothing" right outside of a diner last night. Like the man came right down from heaven. He was innocent and disoriented, but he spoke reverently of God the Father and of punishment.

The truck driver speaks of sin. How man must be punished for his sins.

The next town comes upon them quickly. Castiel asks to be left there and the man complies, waving once as Cas shuts the door. "Have a blessed day, brother," the driver says.

Castiel walks towards the small cluster of shops that make up the center of this part of town, then ducks back behind a dumpster to vomit. It brings him to his knees and it tastes awful and only when his mouth is clear of the stuff does he feel his head, aching. More than the ache is the overwhelming knowledge of what he's responsible for. What he has, in effect, done to his entire race.

His torso quivers and his throat spasms. There's nothing more in his stomach to bring up. He feels awful. This smells awful. This is overwhelmingly.

_Shitty._

Castiel grimaces and rises and walks deeper into the dark behind this building. He does not want to be seen right now. He _should not_ be seen for his own protection, his own preservation, but he also does not _want_ to be seen by anyone. For their eyes to fall on him in assumption, pity, knowledge, anything. He doesn't want to be assumed to be one of them, or assumed to _not_ be one of the flock, to be seen as something decidedly _other_.

He sinks down to his haunches, against the brick wall. There is no one to pray to. The Metatron shut himself up in heaven. If there is anyone left to pray to who may hear, it is Metatron. He will simply be intercepting stories for their entertainment value. He will be witness to the downfall and destruction of each fallen angel. He will be the only one there when they return to heaven after death.

And if God was ever listening, there's nothing Castiel wishes to say to Him.

He closes his eyes again and puts his head in his palms. He brings up the image of himself in a dull tan car, an old car, one that creeks and rattles in unfamiliar ways. He tries to see Dean's hands work underneath the dashboard.

He can't see any of it properly. In all the catalogues of knowledge within him, there's nothing of cars, those blessed inventions that move men from one point to another without wrecking their feet, making them tired, making them ache.

Behind his eyelids, he's in the passenger seat of a car and Dean is in the driver's seat and the car is running strong, rolling steadily towards a new town in a new state. He doesn't imagine that Dean has looked over or asked him anything but he thinks of himself staring over at Dean until he can feel the gaze and fidgets and makes some comment about laser eyes or x-ray vision or pictures lasting longer. Any of a hundred things he's said to attempt to dissuade Castiel from looking for so long.

He holds Dean in his vision, here in the dark. Whole and tall, even in this ill-fitting vehicle that he cracked open and settled for. Blue jeans and black boots and grey jacket.

Where are you, Castiel wants to know. Where are you and how can I be there, too?

Dean's vision is pulled from the road as if Castiel had asked him aloud. How do you start a car without the keys?

It's easy, I'll show you, Dean smiles and a car honks.

Castiel bolts upright to see someone walking away from a parked car, clicking a set of keys with an electronic lock. The sun is well risen now and the daylight has brought men and women out into their town.

Castiel heads back around the building and out into the town proper.

He feels around in his pockets.

There are all the items from early this morning and nothing more. No cell phone, no money. He'd lost the one and left the other in another time and place entirely.

How do we figure this out? This creature we've never fought before?

Castiel thinks of Sam, shoulder deep in books at a well-scratched table.

There is a library two blocks down. Castiel tries the door and then sits beside it. He waits for the library to open.

«»

The woman who unlocks the building is in no hurry. After she sets her purse in a desk drawer and casually flips on the lights and photocopier and computers, she helps Castiel find the books on cars. He does not try to explain exactly what he's looking for. "How to start a car without owning the keys" sounds like something which someone might not want to help you find out, especially when her own car is right outside, in the small parking lot.

She spares him only a few odd looks before returning to the door to pick the overnight returns up off the floor and then she's out of Castiel's sight. He peruses the titles on the spines and reads through the few books he chooses as fast as his fumbling human fingers will allow.

Reading so much starts to make his head throb more. The smell of the books and the worn industrial carpet and the dust that falls off of some of the volumes compounds the problem. He's sitting on the floor in front of the car books and finally has to close his eyes and put his head in his hand. His fingers press into his forehead in certain places which seems to ease the pressure somehow, but it does not last.

Beneath these layers of pain, there are other signals coming from other parts of his body. His stomach grinds, empty and angry. His mouth has tasted disgusting for a while. Each breath he takes through his mouth reminds him of the sourness on his tongue.

There is an impulse to keep chipping away at his biggest problem: That of operating a vehicle on his own so that he can take off in a hurry after an intended theft and, hopefully, make it back to Kansas. But human problems are getting in the way. He knows how this works. Cas has had a headache before. He remembers the jolt of awakening from his first unexpected sleep as a human. He remembers the relief of filling his stomach when it was actually necessary to do so. Sometimes if these problems are treated, they ease and allow you to keep working.

Castiel finds a small restroom at the back of the building. On the men's side there is a stall, a single urinal, and a sink.

He stops and thinks, gauges. Does he have to pee?

He doesn't think so.

He tries the sink, attempts to dial in cool water, and eventually brings handfuls of it to his mouth, spitting to clear out the dryness and bad taste, then drinking. And then he can't fill his hands fast enough. The water is wonderful. But when the coolness of it sinks into his stomach, he's hungrier.

Castiel devours his purloined snack cakes. They're fantastic, too.

He takes a minute, breathes, rests himself. He washes skin oils and sweat from his hands and face and carefully dries them until he feels collected and clean. Then he returns to the stacks.

Cas is unsatisfied with the book selection. It's been an hour or more since the building opened and finally other people have come into the library. Most of them are on the computers.

Yes. Computers. You can ask computers anything without fear of judgment. He should have thought of that before. Sam uses computers for all kinds of research. Dean seems to use his laptop for all manner of private things. It's perfect.

Every station is taken by a child or parent except for one. The keyboard is missing some letters but Castiel manages a search for "how to start a car without the keys." Hot-wiring, right. The search results remind him it's called "hot-wiring." He can't get the computer's sound to work, but watches a video which leads him to another video and then another. He backtracks and reads several other sites. And all of a sudden, it's an embarrassment of riches. Now he actually has to narrow down which car he intends to take and he gets to decide how.

"The Internet," he whispers to himself reverently.

He almost gets up to leave and pauses. He goes back to a search page and types in, "how to get free food."

«»

Castiel awakens early in the dark morning. He tries to rewind his thoughts a little, tries to remember if it was a particular sound, or the perception of some threat which awoke him. But he's well-rested and not on edge or particularly alert. He thinks he must just be. Done sleeping? Maybe?

He sits up slowly and peers through the windows in as subtle a way as possible. No one and nothing appears out of the car windows, though, and he comes to a full sit in the back seat of the Honda.

Hondas are stolen very often, he had learned, and for good reason. They're spectacularly easy to start and not well guarded by their owners. They're cheap and they're _everywhere_. And now one of them belongs to him.

Until sundown, he had sat at a cafe with cup after cup of coffee, learning how to read the signals in his body, re-learning how to listen to it, until the cars in town started to retreat to the more rural areas. When it was just dark enough, he'd made his move.

This town had a sportsman's shop with various hunting and camping equipment. He waited for the last employee to gather all the trash together and head out to the dumpster before he ran into the store, grabbed a few things he needed, and ran out again. He could have waited to see if the employee left an alarm set before they locked up or not, but he _couldn't_ wait much longer to steal a car. Most of those were steadily heading out of the town proper, towards their homes.

Castiel tried to hide his spoils under his coat until he made it back to the parking lot he had scouted out earlier. There was a bar. Several people had come and left their cars in the lot for several hours already, likely taking their time, socializing. That's where he'd picked his white, 1998 Honda Civic.

He'd positively _burned_ out of town. If he'd come across any authorities, he would have been, well, "up shit creek" as the Winchesters would say.

Then he'd simply driven until his stomach protested again.

The library had been very useful. The books, it turned out, had been a complete waste, but the Internet was a priceless treasure.

"Free food" was not hard to find. Castiel was linked to "life hacks" which had taught him how to glean even more from the library. Out back there had been two vending machines and Cas had taught himself how to take them for all they were worth. He rattled snack cakes and beef jerky out of the machine until he had to decide whether to get rid of his road flare and wrench or stop shaking the machine. And then he'd gotten as much change as he could, which paid for the coffee he'd needed while he waited for sundown.

Now he stretches and coughs to clear his throat. Tries to decide if he requires food or if he can just start driving.

First he wants to dig through the car.

The glove compartment is a disappointment. There's a small device in there but Cas can't exactly find a use for it. The trunk is barren except for some old shopping bags, a spare tire, and a rusting lawn chair.

Castiel returns his attention to the small device he'd found and eventually presses enough buttons to discover that it's a GPS. Before, he had looked up his approximate route and memorized which numbers to look for, 191, 189, I-80, NE-10, etc. But now, with some fiddling, he finds that he has a 13-hour drive ahead of him.

It's marvelous. It's also a filthy fucking lie, but he doesn't know how road trips work yet.

«»

The clerk at the gas station gives Castiel a completely venomous look when he pays with a pocket full of quarters. Castiel feels obligated to point out that it is legal tender and he's done nothing wrong. That doesn't seem to help with the glaring.

He was lucky to have made it to this gas station in the first place. Signs of life are few and far between in Wyoming. Stops are frustrating. They mean more time on the road. Castiel doesn't want to stop, but he must. The car needs gasoline and he needs water. He takes every opportunity he can to assault and exploit vending machines, too, but he needs to wait until other people are out of the vicinity, especially if he’s just going to use the tools to break them open. It takes a while. Waiting eats up a lot of time.

The sun starts setting and he didn't expect that. Time doesn't feel like it's moving in the same way it normally does. It's not the jarring time warp of waking up from sleep, but it's close. In another small town, he pulls over to exploit more vending machines to pay for gas and ends up falling asleep behind the wheel, waiting for everyone to clear out of a shopping center parking lot.

Upon waking up, he's back where he was two nights ago. Thrown down with nothing but his body and mind. Someplace unfamiliar. The sky above looking strange, so low-hanging it looks as if it could be touched. But it's really just heavy with rain.

The coast has been clear for hours, probably. It's the middle of the night again. This car is the only one around in the parking lot, or as far down the street as he can see in either direction.

Castiel is alone.

It feels like before. He feels _violently_ alone. Alone on purpose. Alone with intent. Alone like that's the entire point of him being here.

He's tasted fear. This is a little off-center from that. This is irrational fear with an edge of unexplainable foreboding. Anxiety. He tasted this before, too. Yesterday, when the religious man dropped him off and he couldn't do anything but puke up the coffee he'd had to drink when he was still an angel.

Cas clamps a hand around his throat now, the same heavy breathing and physical confusion setting in. He knows, objectively, what he's feeling, and why. But his body is reacting to the stress as a normal human enduring supernaturally twisted events. He recognizes, as if from afar, that this is overload.

He feels like he's losing his grip on his own insides.

When it had happened yesterday, he'd lost the contents of his stomach and then he'd gone to sit in the dark for a moment. He'd tried to think through his problems constructively to work up to an answer he was sure was hidden in his brain somewhere.

Castiel tries it again, closing his eyes now, trying to calm his breathing with one hand, gripping the steering wheel with the other. He tries to sit back and not think about the dark, empty night just outside of his car.

Behind his eyelids, he sees Dean's hand on Sam's shoulder, fingers digging into plaid and holding tight, until Sam breathes again. It's a memory, replayed. A hunt and Sam had the wind knocked out of him, thrown across a room and through a rotted wooden wall. After ensuring his own immediate safety, Dean had rounded back to his brother to dust him off and shake him up a bit. Dean would always haul Sam back up and jostle him by his arms until a good, solid shake wouldn't set him back on his ass again. They would help each other in this way. They'd test one another for stability and when they got their equilibrium back, there'd be a rough, parting pound on the back or chest. A laugh. Then a leap forward to continue taking care of the problem.

And suddenly Uriel is all Cas can think of.

It doesn't help, not at all. Not picturing his brother, his beloved brother, picking Castiel up and grinning and raring forward again, back into the fight, by his side. It doesn't help because he's got Uriel's blood on his hands, too. He wants to pray to Uriel right now. Or Anna. Or Balthazar. Any one of a hundred of them who he's bled with and then taken apart. Or at least had a hand in undoing.

It _really, really does not_ help. His throat spasms under his hand. His eyes shoot open and he is so alone. So fucking _alone_ in the night. In a parking lot. In Wyoming. Nowhere.

His other hand pulls at his tie now, and his top buttons and he tries to press his throat and chest and make himself calm down and now that part inside him, that bit that grasps at the wings and words and whispers of his old grace, no longer there, that bit of him reaches out again and he just can't take it. He _wants_ for something he knows is no longer connected. He wants to reach out to heaven, to put his fears in someone else's palms and trust that it will be okay. That he won't die in a parking lot. That maybe he has a shot at making it to Kansas. To at least _see_ Sam and Dean before this faithless fucking human body collapses in on him.

He closes his eyes again, against the pain this time, and purposely calls up the image of Dean. The one from yesterday. The one in the front seat who couldn't tell him what to do, but who could _guide him_ , no matter if it was from afar. No matter that he couldn't place the images or the knowledge directly into Cas's mind. He was still there for Cas, in that moment, and Cas wants for him now.

Dean's not driving. If Dean were here, right now, he wouldn't be driving. He said, if Cas ever needed help, he should _call_. Castiel never took him up on that. With his pride in the way, with his faith in his own plan, he had none to spare to give over to Dean; to have Dean help him make it alright.

If he had a number and access to a phone, he'd call him now. He'd ask for the help, at long last. And Dean wouldn't be driving. He'd be sitting in the driver's seat with the blinkers on, side of the road, face towards Cas, illuminated by the dashboard lights, hands patiently on his knees and not the wheel.

(Talk to me.)

I want to. I really want to.

Cas pulls all his faith to him, stops letting it try to fly away, wing off to ears that no longer hear. He gathers his faith and everything he needs and he pours it out over the space between them until it ebbs and returns, a slow tidal wake in Dean's lap. Filling up the distance.

He reaches for Dean. It calms him. He _prays_.

«»

The third day. He's on his way southeast, leaving Nebraska when he finds that he needs to stop and do something about the fact that his eyes and legs are going numb. It's strange: Despite sitting for most the day, he feels fatigued, like he's been fighting. Other drivers are faster than him and seem sometimes rather inconsiderate, even when they’re all going the same direction. Purchasing gasoline, again, had been an entire ordeal with counting out change and getting caught attempting to shake down vending machines. He'd stopped at several rest areas and gas stations, fought with the little computer when it wouldn't tell him the easy way back to the interstate, and overall, had discovered that 13 hours wasn't 13 hours.

The damn GPS won't be his problem anymore, though. It is early evening. Cas has just left another rest stop bathroom and he's currently watching a state trooper circle the Honda Civic, speaking into a radio clipped to his shoulder.

He knows that the packaging for his knife, tools, and his snack cakes litters the passenger seat. He'd also left the flashlight and wrench. All the rest is in his pockets.

He had worked to get that car. He wants the trooper to turn his back so he can dart up and get back in and drive away, but restarting it is going to take longer than he'll get. The trooper has the car. There's nothing to be done about it without confrontation.

Castiel is also now, officially, a _thief_. That has him turning around, fast, walking back up to the tables at the rest area and pacing, trying to decide what to do. Would it be too conspicuous to ask a truck driver for a ride? Does he _look_ conspicuous?

He walks further away, to the area some people are using to walk their dogs and rearrange car seats and dig through suitcases.

What's really killing him is the incredibly _tempting_ line of vending machines opposite the restrooms. If no one were looking, he could get so many coins. Drinks. Bugles. He really wants to know what Bugles are.

But people are wandering everywhere. Families and lone drivers and a state-fucking-trooper.

He picks a bench near the back of the small complex and sits, facing away from the patrol car and knowing he should put more distance between himself and the Honda lest someone identify him as the person who drove up in it. He closes his eyes and thinks.

He could wait until it’s darker. There will be fewer people on the road, less people at the rest stop. The officer will be gone by then, the car probably towed. He could raid the vending machines and ask for a ride.

In his head, behind his closed eyes, he's lying across the back seat of the Impala and Dean is driving.

Where do I go? He asks.

Dean chuckles. You're on the south-bound side of the road. Everybody's south-bound here. Everybody's going where you are. Get a ride, dude.

He knows he needs to get one now. He knows he can't linger. You don't linger anywhere on the road, Dean would tell him. You don't get _seen_.

When he opens his eyes, he wants to see what Dean would see. He asks himself what his priorities are.

Getting out. Leaving now. Heading south, into Kansas. Not drawing the notice of the state trooper.

Getting out. _Now_.

He opens his eyes and sees the parking lot with Dean's wisdom in his ears. There are Hondas here. He knows how to rip them off. There are no older cars here. They are all newer sedans, SUVs, and vans. He doesn't know if his hot-wiring skills are ready for working on anything else. There are too many people here. He doesn't want to hurt anyone and he doesn't want to get himself hurt. He doesn't want anyone to notice him and he doesn't want anyone to have a reason to alert the trooper to his presence.

Everyone is heading south. He could ask a trucker for a ride. That would lead to questions. The big rigs are all parked at the front of the complex in the larger parking spaces. They are in full view of the whirling lights and Cas's stolen car. It would be too conspicuous to ask for a ride from them.

He is too far from anywhere to walk into the hills and try to find a new town. Every vehicle here is headed south, he thinks again, as he stares at a trailer.

It's like his newly-human eyes have become new yet again. They process everything under a different set of standards. He discounts every vehicle in the lot for various reasons. Every vehicle except one.

There's a U-haul trailer attached to a pickup truck. The bed of the truck is stacked high with furniture and the door to the trailer, hitched behind it, is just open. Beside it, not far away, a long-haired man is half-way through his cigarette. He looks like he's smoking away his tension, staring off across the darkening landscape. He looks like he enjoys every breath. He looks like he hardly cares about the world around him.

If Cas is quick enough, he can move around the vehicle and into the trailer. But the man might check it again before he closes it up and hits the road.

Cas has got no bags, nothing in his hands, nothing but his coat. He's over-dressed compared to the people milling around him. He would look more natural if he carried something.

With no real understanding of where that knowledge came from, he shrugs off the trench coat and fishes his last quarters out of his pockets. He buys a bottle of water from a vending machine and uses a "life hack" to trick the machine into dropping two. No one milling about him notices that much.

By the time he's made it back to the lot, the man is crushing the filter of his cigarette underfoot.

Castiel approaches openly, from down the sidewalk, and attempts a smile.

"May I ask you something?" he asks, when the man is close enough to hear him.

The man fusses with his pack of cigarettes as if deciding whether to light another. He only raises an eyebrow and says, "Huh?"

"I was just wondering," Cas says, approaching closer, "if you. Well. If you wanted this. The machine gave me two." He offers the second water bottle.

The man sinks his cigarette packet into his jeans pocket and stiffens, caution straightening his spine.

Cas decides to leap.

"I just need a ride. If you have room. You can have this. I don't have any other way to pay you. I'm just trying to get to Kansas."

Castiel waits while the man assesses him, looks him up and down, sees the bulky coat under his arm.

"You some freak?" the man asks.

"No?"

That was probably too hesitant, too strange for a response. Castiel holds his breath, hand still outstretched with the water bottle.

"Oh. I've never. Uh. You're hitchhiking? I've just never picked up a hitchhiker before. Um. Well, yeah. I guess I have room. If you're not a serial killer or something. Yeah. The passenger seat's free. Um." He pulls his cigarette packet out again. "Just one more. You can keep your water, man," he shakes his hand at Cas to get him to finally drop his arm. "I just need one more and then we can go."

"That would be helpful. Thank you."

"Yeah, sure. How far are you going?"

Castiel had assumed that depended on the driver.

"As far into Kansas as you're willing to take me. I'm. I'm coming from Nevada," Cas is suddenly moved to throw in. If he says he's come here by way of Nevada, he would have no reason to have stolen a car in Idaho. It's not proof, but if the trooper starts _trooping_ and one good man can vouch for him, Cas thinks it may get the cop off his case for long enough that they can drive away. He wishes the man hadn't needed a second cigarette so they could leave right now, but he refuses to betray impatience. He must cultivate a kind of trust between them, or at least some politeness. It might get him home.

Home.

Something about that thought tastes different. But he doesn't have the time to work it out. Suddenly he has to work out why this man is laughing at him.

"What?" he asks.

"You lost your shirt, didn't you, man? Haha. Lost all your money in Vegas and you're trying to crawl home? Shit. Sorry. I didn't mean to laugh at you. I, uh, kinda know how that is. Wow. Sorry. I mean, sorry. You're probably broke and, like, tired, and like, crawling home to your wife right now, huh? Man," he takes a long draw off his cigarette. "That sucks."

Castiel pauses. Then agrees. "Yes. It sucks. Sucks. A lot."

"Wow. Sorry, man, sorry. Yeah, we'll work something out when we get near Lebanon, okay?"

( _Nailed it_.)

"Uh. Thank you. That would be good," Cas is cautious about giving away the full force of his enthusiasm. He feels he should be careful about revealing his destination. It's what Dean would do.

There follow some questions about how he hitched from Vegas into Nebraska. It's rather out of the way. The man's assumption about Castiel losing all his money turned out to be convenient but he also has to convince him there were some hitchhiking mishaps along his way that got him turned a little far north. The Honda's plates are from Idaho, thankfully, not Wyoming. There's no reason he would have come anywhere near Idaho. Castiel babbles on about falling asleep in someone's truck. It sounds awkward, but the man mostly makes more assumptions himself about Castiel's unfortunate luck. Cas nods and smiles.

To keep the man from glancing around the complex, where he might finally glimpse the trooper car, Cas introduces himself as Carl, because it just rolls off his tongue that way. He claims to have been a tax accountant. The man only laughs harder.

By the time he slips into the passenger seat and they're on the road, a new set of blue flashing lights pulls into the rest stop in the rear-view mirrors. And contrary to what he knows, contrary to how cautious he feels he should be, Castiel is calm. He feels gently guided. It's not heavy-handed like it was under the command of Revelation. He feels as if something is sharing his senses and filtering everything anew.

He has been without his Father for a very long time. All his decisions have been his own. Castiel has been _alone_ for a very long time. Now that he is completely solitary, occupying a human body without Jimmy's company, without stray souls, without the cacophony of heaven's chatter and commands, now that he is well and truly alone, from out of that silence comes a new sensation. There is an echo of protection, caution. The pain, the constantly bruised and infected, flayed tenderness where angels, his siblings, used to be connected, is raw still, but numbed out. When he thinks about them, he swallows down fear and ache, like the vomiting from the first day. He puts his fingers to his throat and feels the muscles move under the flesh from the action -- simply from that wrecking thought, that of his family.

In another space within him entirely, there is that caution. It is terse with him, like Bobby Singer's gruff voice telling him when he knows better. It is careful with him, like Sam Winchester's acceptance that Castiel is old and wise, but enhanced by the new knowledge he's gained in mixing company with humans and demons. It is wry with him, like Balthazar's surety that the world's complications can be battered away and remade to be self-serving and beneficial, hilarious and useful.

Mostly, though, it speaks in Dean Winchester's voice. It tells him to be calm. When you cannot always be calm, you must act fast and preserve yourself. You can't do harm; you can't be less-than-human. But you can save yourself, fight another day. Sometimes, you have to live for others. You have to be sure that you've got to keep going. Because someone cares for you and ( _if you come back to him in less than one piece, he'll kick your ass_ ).

Castiel feels a smile on his face.

The driver -- Jonathan, he called himself -- smiles, too, and asks what's up.

"I just feel like I'm almost there. I just can't wait to be home," Castiel says.

«»

The conversation between "Carl" and Jonathan is polite and sticks mainly to television, and then, not for long. The catalogue of TV shows Cas has watched is so random as to border on kind of deranged. Once they've established that he hasn't even seen the newest _Star Trek_ movie, they're quiet for a while so Jonathan turns on a radio station and mostly they leave it at that.

They stop in a place called Red Cloud. Jonathan began his drive late in the afternoon and intends to continue driving all night after he drops Cas off. He explains that he needs some food to keep him awake. Though they're only about 20 minutes from where Cas wants to be, he joins Jonathan inside to practice not looking strange.

Jonathan brooks no argument over money. He treats Cas to a sandwich. "I know you don't have a dime to your name, man. But if you don't eat, you're gonna pass out. I can spare five bucks. It's nothing."

Still, Cas isn't much for conversation. It doesn't help that, two tables down, there's a deep discussion going on over some "wild thing" that showed up in town two days ago. One of the fallen, from what Cas can tell. They half-whisper about her unblinking eyes, her formal manner of speech, her disorientation, her religious ranting.

Her rage.

Hungry as he is, Cas finds it hard to eat.

(No. Keep up the act.)

Cas shoves some chips into his mouth. He slurps his soda and gets up to refill it after watching Jonathan do the same.

He tries not to look like he's listening too closely and, for it, he sacrifices half his hearing. But from what he hears over the crunching in his own head, the police had been called. No one can calm the strange, wild woman down.

"So, what," Jonathan prompts out of nowhere. "You've got a wife in Kansas? Kids?"

Cas clears his throat. "Family, yes. Not many of us left. Not many of us left _there_ but. Uhm. It's home," he improvises. He can't think of outright lies for some reason. If he had to name a wife and children, what would he name them? He is Carl right now. Not Jimmy. And all the other names he can think of right now are not names he should use. Naomi, Ellen, Meg. Sam, Dean, Samandriel, Bobby, Cas, Kevin.

Nothing feels right. He can't fabricate things as fast as Dean can, behind a suit and badge.

He feels astoundingly bad at the creative side of humanity. It only makes him want to try harder.

"My brother," Sam? Kevin? (What rhymes with Kevin?) "Devon. He lives near Lebanon. So if I can make it there, I'll have a place to be, at least. A place to sleep."

"Somewhere to get your shit together," Jonathan nods. He's good at filling in conversation.

"Yes." For the life of him, Cas can't think of anything else to throw out.

"You're kind of a quiet guy," Jonathan points out between bites. He says it offhand, as if it doesn't bother him too much, it's just different.

(Different isn't good. Not around the normals.)

"Oh. Well," Cas scrambles for an idea and comes up with the same one from before. (Vegas.) Jonathan had assumed he was coming back from Las Vegas. "You should have seen me in Vegas."

"Ah!" Jonathan laughs. "Wore you out, huh? _Hangover_ style," he laughs again. "Hey at least you woke up with all your teeth, right?"

Cas attempts to laugh along with him as if he understood the reference. He's not sure if he can accurately gauge if the silence afterwards is awkward or not. Shoving more of the sandwich in his mouth helps him not to examine that too closely.

«»

When they approach the border to Kansas, there's a sign welcoming them in. Heat flares in Castiel's chest, spreads out to his ribs. He has his trench coat off again, wrapped in his arms. He folds it into his chest and hugs it close to him. He's so close. He's _excited_. He's warm. He's feeling slightly jarred.

He also knows he could walk to the outskirts of town and find the bunker in a bad way, blood on the ground. Or show up and find it empty. That thought makes the anxiety rise, sends a jolt through him. It's disquieting.

Jonathan notices him leaning forward in the passenger seat.

"Almost home, man. You're gonna have a hell of a story to tell your brother. Sure he'll take you in?"

"Um. No. But I have to start somewhere."

They arrive at the center of the country.

Jonathan kindly offers to drive out of his way, to help him find "his brother's" house. Castiel insists that he go on. He waves from the sidewalk, near darkened storefronts, and watches the truck and trailer drive into the night.

It's so dark. He always seems to arrive in new places when not a single person is in town.

Castiel looks at the direction he ought to walk: West. He should turn right and start heading towards the bunker.

But now that he's here, he feels pulled in another direction. East, actually. He feels as if he ought to go east.

He knows he left his perfect global coordination behind in heaven, but he can't believe he could have lost his senses that completely. He knows-- well. He _thinks_ he knows that the bunker is to the west.

But he feels like he ought to turn left instead.

This is the right town. He's sure of it.

He moves to stand in the center of the empty street.

Cas is so _sure_ of this.

Why does he feel _left_ , then, rather than _right_?

Castiel is so tired. He's so worn, just from driving here. Just from the toe-clenching on the gas pedal of the Honda, the stress of the state trooper who found his car, and this new task. Acting as human as it's possible for him to be.

Is this a _human_ instinct? Pulling him left?

Humans are so wise. So many of the good ones make better decisions than _he_ does.

Castiel tugs his coat around his body and walks east into a great expanse of road and field.

Castiel walks until morning.

«»

Against all logic, the sunrise gleams gold and orange off the top of the Chevy Impala. She waits, all dark lines and cool to the touch, outside Jewell County Hospital.

Every time he almost turned around in the night, headed back to the bunker, stationary in a way the boys never ever are, this feeling pulled him forward.

The past few days feel like unreality.  
The Impala, under his hand, feels like reality.

Castiel heads into the hospital.

He realizes that he's going to have to find his way in, to Sam and Dean. And, if the front desk is any indication, he's going to have to _talk_ his way in.

Oh, this is already getting _really old_.

Cas pulls off his coat and folds it over his arm again. It feels right, like a barrier against the rest of the world. He steps forward quietly, without too much haste, trying not to betray his impatience. He makes eye contact with one of the nurses behind the desk.

And then he sees a black boot against the tile floor in an adjacent room, the knee above it, in blue jeans, swaying slightly.

He moves past the desk. Doesn't care if they flag him down for it or not.

Around the corner, Dean sits alone in a waiting room, staring down into a paper cup of coffee and chewing on his thumbnail something fierce.

His shoulder underneath Castiel's fingers feels real, too. Like the car had been. Like the past days had _not_ always been.

Dean is immediately responsive to the touch, though what he looks up to see is clearly not what he expected.

His mouth works and Cas can hear the click of the 'c' as it comes out of Dean's throat but he doesn't actually say anything, not until after a few seconds of staring.

Castiel brings his whole hand down around Dean's shoulder. "If you're here," he says, "Sam is the one in the hospital room. Is Sam alright?" Because he knows that when Sam _isn't_ alright, pretty much nothing else in the world means anything to Dean.

Dean's eyes drift off, thoughts darting behind them, volume building. He puts the coffee cup on the floor beneath the chair and rises, pulling Cas to the corner of the room with him, looking around and behind, checking that there are no witnesses.

"Tell me you still got some juice left, man." Dean's voice is a low rasp. It's already hopeless and Cas can't do anything but confirm his fears.

He shakes his head. "I walked here," Cas sort of shrugs.

Dean sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. Curses.  
Then: "Wait. From where?"

"Lebanon. The-- the town," Cas points west. "Not Beirut," he points east for clarification.

"Uh yeah. Thanks. I got that. You walked the whole way? Were you at the bunker?"

"No. Idaho."

Dean looks startled. "Idaho. You walked from Idaho?"

"No, I stole a car."

Dean is completely taken aback. And no matter what else he's feeling right now, it doesn't seem he can suppress what comes next. His whole face opens up, his mouth curves into a smile. He looks... proud.

"Now, that's what I'm talkin' about, Cas. At least if you're going native, you're doing it right. Our young man already has a record."

"Well," Cas concedes, "that's probably true. I had to leave the car with a state trooper near Kearney."

"Dude," Dean nods. "At least you've been paying attention. We'll work on evading the police later. First thing's first. Got any idea how we can reverse what the trials did? Sam's been laid up for days now. I don't think the normies can do anything but run tests and try to make him comfortable." Dean sneers and like that the light has gone straight out of his eyes again.

"I don't know. Um. I'm going to sit down because I might fall down if I don't."

"Oh," Dean allows it, seeming to remember the whole part about Cas _walking_ seven hours from the next town over.

They sit in the corner, Cas hunched over his folded jacket, Dean's left knee occasionally swaying into his own. Dean recounts events as far as he knows them and Castiel spares no detail of what took place between himself and Metatron. There's no hiding it. And no need. Whatever he experienced can only be a reflection of what Sam experienced in his tasks. They need this for comparison. Castiel won't withhold anything that could fix Sam. Not after everything else he's put Sam through.

"Um. You just left Crowley there?" he asks.

"Well, from what I've gotten out of Sam -- I mean, when he's been awake -- Abaddon dropped by and attempted to take them both out. I figure: So what? If she gets another vessel, comes back, goes all Mr. Blonde on Crowley, at least she does it nowhere near us," he sweeps his hands out and away. "She can have him. Well. Unless you think he can help somehow. But I don't really want him anywhere near Sam. If Sam gives in--" Dean swallows. Goes silent.

Right. If Sam gives in to the pain and decides to finish the final task just to make it stop, it would be all too easy to cleanse Crowley and make it final.

Cas shakes his head, dismissing the issue of the demon entirely. Of course, Castiel is all for letting Crowley get ripped into several nonfunctioning parts.

Dean looks down, between his feet. Cas imagines he's had his fill of the sight of the hospital's tiled floor over the past days. His eyes always drift to the north wing doors, beyond which Sam will be sleeping, sedated. The opposite of Castiel, who has been further on his own two feet in the past three days than he's ever before journeyed on this earth.

Dean's knee drifts into Cas's again.

"Not the same," he mutters, as if in echo to Castiel's thought.

Cas only looks at him until he heaves a breath and shakes his head.

"Are you allowed to go see him?" Castiel asks.

"At eight. Once he's slept the whole night."

"And did you come back here from home or have you been waiting the entire time?"

Dean is wearing his same clothes and he does not look up to answer the question. Cas knows the answer all the same.

Castiel rises and walks to the boundary of the waiting room area. There seems to always be a nurse at the desk. It's 7:40.

He's seen Sam and Dean, two known fugitives, dead and alive and dead again, walk into police stations and sheriff offices with full confidence, barely flashing fake identification, demanding answers.

Dean looks run down. And judging from past experience, he's probably been giving the staff hell since they arrived.

Still, he walks back over to Dean, tugs him up by the arm. "Show me where the bathrooms are," he says, when they're in view of the front desk. Dean gives him a weird look, but starts walking down the hall. As soon as the only attentive staffer is pulled away by a phone call, he yanks Dean's arm again and hauls him through the north wing doors.

"You're going to check on Sam," Cas says.

Dean still looks a little off-kilter in the face of Castiel's command of the situation, but he leads down the hallway, anyway. They're quiet and they duck directly into Sam's room.

The blinds are all down but it is light enough to see that Sam looks awful. His skin is drawn and pale, crossed in places with shallow cuts and fully bandaged in others.

"Sammy. You up?" Dean whispers.

There's no response. Castiel hangs back, trying to keep an eye on the door, but he also watches Dean float over his brother. He touches lightly, in some places to check on him. He pulls the blanket up how he prefers it. When Sam finally stirs, it's not with much enthusiasm.

"Checkin' on you," Dean says. "You alright?"

Cas can't hear if Sam responds to that.

"I'm gonna figure this out, Sammy. Backup's arrived," he thumbs back in Cas's direction.

He hears Sam responding this time, but mostly can't make it out.

"Yeah. Cas is here. Cas is okay. We're gonna work on it Sammy. Sleep, alright? I won't be far."

"Yes, you will," Castiel interrupts.

Dean turns a half-peeved stare on him. "We're not leaving him here unguarded, Cas."

"You are. You're leaving a cell phone and you'll be back in a few hours. After we go home and eat. After you rest."

Dean looks like a storm rolling in, so Cas points out he can't do any research here. And if he drops Cas off at the bunker -- rather than making him walk again, _please and thank you_ \-- Cas can at least get started on that much.

"You'll be back soon. And they won't sedate him again for a while. So if he needs you within the next two hours, he can call you."

Sam knows Cas is fighting the good fight, at least, and puts his hand on Dean's arm and tries to push him a little, towards the door.

Cas hears that much clearly: "Go," Sam says.

Dean stashes his cell phone under Sam's pillow. "You're the first number on speed dial. I've got your phone in the car, so I'll charge it at home. And I'll _answer_. You call for anything, Sammy. You got me? Anything."

Sam gives him another weak shove and Cas gives Dean another minute to stand there and worry before he ushers him out into the daylight.

«»

In the parking lot, Dean lashes out. He shoves Cas up against the car and holds his gun on him while he rips the trench coat out of Castiel's arms.

He keeps an eye on Cas while he fumbles for the pockets of the trench, one-handed.

"Why didn't you call," Dean demands.

"I was dropped here with nothing but my clothes. I had nothing, Dean, nothing at all."

Dean is pulling the crinkling wrappers of snack bags out of his pockets and dropping them on the ground. A Zebra Cake falls out of a half-finished package and rolls away. The flare lands beside the mess. Some nickles. In the other pocket he finds the screwdriver, the small camping knife, and the quarter sandwich that Cas saved from when he ate dinner with Jonathan. There are some other stray items and a few more coins but Dean just shakes out the coat and shoves it back at Cas.

"You stand right there." He keeps the gun trained as he walks around to the trunk and unlocks it. Dean comes back to Cas a minute later with a spray bottle. "Roll up your sleeve," he says, and Cas is thankful that he's at least not getting borax in the face.

Cas passes the test. Holy water washes the cleaner off of his arm, cleansing the area for a cut from a silver knife.

That's when Dean finally lowers the gun. He holds Cas's forearm for a while, watching blood trickle from the wound that's not healing.

"Dean," Cas says.

"I should put down holy oil and see if you can hop out of the flames or not." Dean continues to stare at his arm. After another few moments, he wipes the blood away himself and moves back to put everything in the trunk again. He comes back with a handkerchief and ties it tight around Cas's arm.

When Dean finally meets his eyes, Castiel says, "Maybe later."

"Too depressing to think about, huh?"

Castiel frowns. He bends over to pick up all the snacks he can salvage. He decides to give Dean the screwdriver, knife, and road flare. Dean just stares at them before adding them to his arsenal and pulling an old angel sword out of the collection. He offers the hilt to Castiel. "Probably easiest for you to keep fighting with this for now. We'll find you a good gun to carry. Later."

The sword is cold, solid metal. Nothing about it resonates. He can't hold it under the wing of his true form. He can't send it away and call it to his hand. It just sits there. It feels familiar. But not _right_.

Dean is just staring as Cas holds the sword.

"I am actually me. It's only me in here," Castiel gestures at himself.

"Right. Yeah, I know. It's not that." Rather than explaining what it is, he closes the trunk and heads to the driver's seat. Cas rounds the car and gets in, too.

Before he starts the car, Dean says, "You don't have to carry it if you don't want. If it doesn't feel right. You gotta carry something but it doesn't have to be that."

That's interesting of Dean to say.

Cas only wraps the sword in the coat and holds it all on his lap.

Dean drives to the bunker fast. It only takes about twenty minutes for Cas to watch the road he walked all night slip by.

«»

In the living quarters of the bunker, Castiel is able to shower. It's very nice. He wasn't fully aware of just how itchy and uncomfortable he'd become, how dirt had built upon the stiffness in his clothes from being out in the rain and sweating in the day. He knows he must have showered when he'd lived with Daphne but his pseudo-human life before he absorbed the replicating madness from Sam's head is hard to discern from what his delusions put him through in the mental ward. Before then, he remembers the hospital after he'd turned up on the fishing boat. He remembers waking up completely human, needing to get back to the Winchesters, bathing hastily and throwing his dirty clothes back on and rushing off again.

So this is not a first but it feels fresh and new and important. It feels like something he could easily work into a routine. He supposes he'll _have to_.

The warm water relaxes him a little more and he finds himself able to think quite clearly, despite the haze of exhaustion creeping in on the rest of his body.

He mentally reviews the final tasks and puts them up against each other. Clearly they are similar. A demon cured and put back on the path to humanity; an angel's powers revoked, plunging it into humanity.

He can't think further than that, but he grasps the idea long enough that he can towel dry, put on clothes, and seek Dean out in the kitchen.

Coffee's on. Dean's stuffing a PB&J into his mouth and loading up on caffeine. He changed, too. His shirt, pants, jacket, all fresh. And his shoes are back on. Clearly he doesn't intend to get any rest or linger too far from Sam for too long.

Dean had dug through his stuff to find a button-up, accidentally shrunk in the dryer, and a decent pair of jeans for Castiel. Sockless, on the cold floors of these large, wood-and-leather rooms, Cas feels rather less than he used to. As if he's at an entirely different eye level. Even the doorways seem wider.

"Everything fit?" Dean asks.

Cas knows he means the clothes but intends to skip over the pettier inquiries. If Dean means to leave again so soon, they have to at least start the ball rolling on a cure for Sam.

"Better than expected," Cas answers. "Is there paper? And a pen or...?"

Dean frowns but puts his food down and grabs the grocery list off the fridge, flips it over, hands Cas a pen.

Cas titles and lines two columns. One is "Sam," one is "Cas."

Under his own column, Cas writes three items. Kill nephilim. Cupid bow. Cure an angel.

Under Sam's column, Cas writes three items. Kill hellhound. Steal soul from hell. Cure a demon.

"Parallels," Cas says when the chart is complete.

"Really?" Dean cocks an eyebrow, doubtful. "For one, you weren't 'cured,' Cas. And I don't see how those other ones are really parallels."

"I was required to cut out the heart of the nephilim," Cas explains. "Sam was specifically required to 'bathe in the blood' of the hellhound. Essentially covering himself in the blood of an abominable creature."

"And your task with the heart did what?"

"Removed the heart, the actual blood, of an otherwise heavenly creature which was still an abomination."

"Okay. I kind of see the parallel," Dean concedes. "And, what, the second tasks have things in common because you were both stealing?"

"Yes. I was supposed to steal the cupid's bow. Sam was supposed to steal away a soul. But what do hell and a Cupid have in common?"

Dean shrugs, but takes a stab at it. "Cupids. Uh. Bring two people together. Connect people?"

Cas nods. "And hell disconnects people. Hell separates the soul from its humanity. Two beings who should be one. Sam interrupted that process, thwarting a separation of hell's design. While a bow is heaven's design for connecting two, who should be one."

"Alright." Dean thinks for a moment. "Okay. So. The third task was for Sam to cure a demon. To separate a demon from hell. Or? To, uh, reconnect two who should be one?"

"Close," Cas says. "Sam used his blood to purify Crowley. He put purity into an entirely damned creature. He put everything he was into the spell: His energy, his very life force -- which is why he's ended up so weak. His perceived sins and faults. His very blood and being."

"And your very _being_ , like you said, was taken by Metatron. Sam's," Dean motions expansively with his hands, " _whole self_ was supposed to be the last item in the ingredients that shut down hell. When he died, the gates were gonna close. So the parallel is that your whole self got taken as the final ingredient on their side-- your side-- _for heaven_. Whatever. And it closed off heaven."

"Except that heaven has not been shut closed," Cas corrects him. "When we die, we'll still go there. The Metatron confirmed as much to me."

Dean huffs in disgust. "What, like, see you next week, sucker? He threatened you?"

Cas wavers a little. "Not exactly. The point is, heaven wasn't shut down, the spell was used to make the angels human and it left the one making the spell in place exactly where he was."

"Wait. So we _don't_ have parallels?"

"Correct. We do until the final task. Which was then further interrupted by Sam's not _completing_ the final task."

"Well we're sure as shit not going to just throw him at it to see if it sticks."

"That's not what I was suggesting, Dean. I was just." Cas stops.

"Thinking out loud. Trying to figure this out."

Cas shrugs. Because: Yeah, basically.

Dean sighs and claps a hand on Castiel's shoulder. "When's the last time you slept?"

Cas doesn't know why the question sounds odd, out of nowhere. "A day ago. Perhaps more."

"Yeah. Perhaps," Dean mocks lightly. "I'm heading back." Dean moves further into the kitchen and starts digging through the cabinets. He comes up with a thermos to keep the rest of the pot of coffee for himself. "Get a few hours, settle in. Then start hitting the books. There's a landline," Dean points at a telephone. "I'll call. Or _you_ call if you find anything, okay?"

Cas nods but Dean's got his back to him, gathering his keys and wallet from the counter.

"I couldn't find one goddamn sign of Kevin. It's really fucking unlikely, but if he shows back up, I need to know that, too."

He sounds angry, pissed even. But Cas can tell it's more concern than anything. If the prophet is wise, Cas thinks, he'll be far from any of this. And he won't show up again. Kevin will save himself.

Dean starts to leave and Castiel really wants to have something more to say. He can't think of anything. He could tell him that Sam will be okay, but this is Dean Winchester and his brother. Dean won't allow Sam to be anything other than _okay_.

«»

Cas tries to start in on the library, but the volumes are all so heavy and he is so worn out.

Dean's black laptop is sitting in his room. Cas thinks about trying some research on the Internet, but Dean's made it clear that his laptop is for private use. Sam's belongings seem to be for research, for anyone to use, but Cas can't find his things anywhere. They're likely still in the Impala.

Cas finally goes to one of the rooms where spare mattresses are stacked and extra equipment has been stored. This room doesn't have Sam's or Dean's personal belongings in it, so he doesn't feel like he's intruding. It still bothers him that he's here, making no progress in finding out how to fix Sam, and Dean is there, at the hospital, watching over his broken brother again. It feels as if he's showed up simply to take up space. Like he isn't of service, like he isn't any help. But he's tied, right now, to the physical demands of his body, the physical limitations of it, his inability to seek out other sources of information in the blink of an eye. He cannot even pray to his father for assistance or guidance.

He closes his eyes and is reminded of the last time he closed them with a purpose in mind. Each time, behind his eyelids, he has the ability to sit and stay with Dean, or some shade of him. To at least _feel_ that they share space and presence. It is a comfort. He calls Dean's image to him right now.

In the real Impala, in the full light of day, in any average moment, Dean would not allow this. But here, in the dark, in the unreality, Castiel can reach over the space between them on the seat and pull Dean's hand back over. He can cover Dean's fingers, his whole hand, with both of his own and assure Dean that Sam will be fine. That they will not only find the solution to this, but when hell surges back at them, they'll continue to fight back every wave of monsters. Here, he can tell Dean that it'll be the three of them. That Cas will not go anywhere. He won't disappear like before because he can't. And he won't leave like before because he doesn't want to. He will guard this front with them whether they want the help or not. For there is a way to reverse what's been done to Sam. That spell is not 100% complete. But there's no way to reverse what's been done to the angels.

Castiel smiles openly at Dean. Stares as much as he pleases, and it's one of those moments where Dean stares back and so he doesn't mind.

He no longer has to make the choice to stay or to go. The decision has been taken out of his hands. And like the soldier he used to be, right now he is thankful that he has no choice.

He tells Dean he's right here, he calms Dean with his hands, until he falls asleep and cannot command what happens in the dark anymore.

«»

Castiel wakes up late into the afternoon. The first thing he does is stand in the doorway to the pantry and runs his tongue over his bottom lip. He stares at the food and isn't sure where to start. Or if he should.

It's stocked to each of their preferences -- Sam's and Dean's. He finally decides that if he eats a little bit of a few things, here and there, and doesn't polish anything off entirely, it won't make them that annoyed that he's eating the food they paid for. After struggling with the vending machines and the whole driving situation, he's got a fuller, healthier respect for what it takes to get your own food. How you earn it and how much you need it. He eats the last bag of chips he had bought on his journey, then he has one of Sam's wheat bagels and a small bowl of one of Dean's sugary cereals. He had seen Dean operate the coffeemaker before but it doesn't work out so well for him. He sticks to water from the tap until he starts getting a headache and really, _really_ wants the coffee.

All the while, he keeps his chart out in front of him. He mulls over the missing piece of Sam's spell.

That missing piece is Crowley's full restoration to a human with all human feeling and sense restored. What Sam was removing from his body to fix Crowley was his own blood. Possibly his total life force if his seriously advanced state of decay is anything to go by.

That would parallel Castiel's own experience, though his own decline was much more immediate. Instead of forcing the change into someone, the change was made by removing what was inside of Castiel.

It comes to him with bagel crumbs on his chin. What was being removed from Sam, purifying him, was either the opposite of Crowley -- his humanity being purged -- or it was the hell within him. The demon blood. If it were anyone else, someone who didn't grow up under the eyes of demons, who didn't grow up with Azazel's blood replicating within them, Castiel would say that person was losing their humanity and ascending to sainthood. The performance of three "miracles" would back that up. But Sam Winchester has something else underneath his humanity.

If the demon blood is what needs to be fully removed from his system to allow him to begin recovery, Sam would either need to finish the ritual, or expel the demonic influence from within him some other way.

It might kill him regardless. Whatever allowed him to have been an actual vessel for Satan might run too deep to fix. But if he can find some other way to completely cleanse Sam's blood without the tablet's spell, Dean would want to try it. It is likely their best shot.

Aside from one other tactic, virtually impossible and too much to ask: There is a chance that everything could be corrected by working the spell in reverse. It would start with compelling Crowley back to his demonic ways and descend in sanity from there. It's not a good idea. But Castiel decides to present all the options he knows of to Dean.

He utilizes the library first. He wants to do this the way Sam would. It's Sam's life and Sam is the one who normally does the hands-on research. Castiel feels obligated to apply Sam's methods before he makes any recommendations to Dean.

He finds some promising texts, but without his former powers, reading a book will require actual reading, not just absorption. He gathers the books which best present the options and then goes to Dean's room to stand over his desk again. Cas decides it's still not okay to touch the laptop without Dean's permission.

Castiel is on the point of actually calling him when Dean shows back up. It's late into the evening, almost midnight. Cas had actually had the paper next to the phone in hand, about to pick up and dial.

Dean's clunking down the stairs before he calls out for Cas.

"Got something yet?" he asks, expectant.

"Actually, yes. How was Sam when you left him?"

Dean grumbles a bit. "They shoved me out for the night. They doped him up again. He's not screaming and moaning or anything. It's worse. He's just. Just _lying there_ ," Dean says. Cas can tell it's supposed to look like annoyance on the outside, but it's actually kind of mournful. Dean is within reach of him and he wants to lay his hand on Dean, to offer some shade of assurance, but his prayer-- his dreaming from this morning comes back to him. It wasn't far from reality itself. Especially not with Dean so close as he is now. But it was different. It was something he knows isn't on offer under the lights in the library. Instead, he motions for Dean to come around the table and observe.

"I can think of three options," he starts. "Reversing the spell completely, completing the spell, or completing Sam's role in the spell without completing the spell."

Dean settles on his feet, crosses his arms and frowns. "Keep talking."

"Reversing the spell is the most logical course of action. It's an undoing of everything that's been done."

"So," Dean thinks for a moment. Stops. Starts again. "So how would that work?"

"Just like you'd expect. We'd re-enact every step of the spell backwards. Well, Sam would. Meaning Crowley would have to be returned to his most basic demonic state, we wou--"

"Okay. You can stop right there," Dean kind of chuckles while he says it. "There's, like, _no way_ that can go down. I mean, at _best_ you're talking about somehow torturing Crowley until he turns demon again. And at _worst_ you're talking about taking blood out of Crowley," he jabs a finger out to the left, "and putting it _in_ my _brother_ ," he hooks a thumb to the east, in the direction Sam rests for the night.

"I can't say it would be pleasant. We could attempt it the first way. You do have a dungeon after all."

"Alright. And assuming we can make a _former demon's_ life enough of a living hell that he turns demon again, reversing the next step would be smuggling a soul out of heaven and shoving it back in hell. _Bobby's_ soul, probably. Am I getting this right? Cas, that's not an answer, man. I don't see this working out."

Cas concedes the point, nods just once.

"The second option would be to complete the final task."

"Yeah, not happening."

"Dean, there is a chance that the completion of the spell _won't_ kill him."

"What? No. Not happen-- _Wha--_ Cas. No. That's not an answer, either," Dean practically trips over himself to refuse.

"Will you even hear why?" Cas interrupts his continuing protests.

Dean pauses and crosses his arms tight again. He sighs. And nods.

"This task was open for anyone to complete, not just ab-- not just a Winchester. Not just a person who is, for all intents and purposes, somewhat super-human," Cas says.

"Super-human?" Dean repeats dubiously.

"You have both been to and come back from the outside realms unscathed," Cas shrugs, amends, "mostly unscathed. That cannot apply to many other humans. Both you and Sam have been to all three, in fact: Heaven, hell, purgatory. You've survived. You are either blessed," he says doubtfully, "or imbued with some other, tougher stuff."

"Vague."

"Guessing," Cas admits. "But you do have to admit that you've both been through worse than what Sam's going through now." Cas swallows before saying, quieter, "Even _I_ have put Sam through worse than he's going through right now."

Dean does not respond to that, folded up into himself and still and steady.

"It is a theory. It could both complete the spell and rid us of the demons _and_ fulfill the missing piece of the task that would allow Sam to come out of the other side of this spellwork."

Dean kind of squints at him. "You still don't believe Naomi."

That came out of nowhere. Castiel focuses on Dean, confused.

"She's the one who came down and told us the last task would kill Sam and you still don't believe her," Dean accuses. "Is this 'option' still just you doubting her? Be honest about it, man."

Castiel's heart races in his chest. He's surprised at how heated his face gets, how rapid his breathing comes. "I would NOT. Risk _Sam_. On the basis of my _distaste_ with anyone."

They are quiet for a moment. Dean only stands there in the same place and _inspects_.

Castiel breathes in deeply. "I concede that I don't trust what Naomi ever said. Dean, the things she charged me with doing." Castiel has to swallow down a rush in his gut to continue. "The things she made me do." Cas can hear his own voice sound different as he goes on. "There is no reason. There." He closes his eyes tight. What he sees behind them weakens everything. It makes him want to sleep. It makes him want to hide away. It reminds him what he _is_ and there's nothing he wants less than that right now.

When Dean's hand lands on his shoulder, even through the borrowed plaid shirt, he feels how cold it is.

He opens his eyes to Dean who looks almost like he's seen something of what Cas has in the past year. He prays Dean doesn't. And remembers there's no such thing as _prayer_ anymore.

Cas swallows. "It is not the best option. I don't think it's the _right_ option. But I'm giving you _all_ the options. Because this is _Sam_. Because of how much Sam _means_ ," he says.

Dean's hand falls from him. "Yeah. Okay. Uhm." He clears his throat. "What's the third option, Cas?"

Cas pulls in and noisily blows out another steadying breath. He pushes the books on the table the short distance towards Dean. "If the demon blood is what was being purged from Sam -- if what Sam thought was being cleaned out of him was Azazel's original influence, then either he finishes the process by completing the task, or we can attempt to draw it out of him completely in another way."

Dean looks slightly shocked. "You mean we're finally pulling the demon blood out."

"In theory," Cas taps the top book on the stack. "Cleansing rituals. From all over the world. Powerful ones. And I didn't have a computer, but I could find others."

"I'll get Sammy's out of the car for you. And we'll call around. Ask about some others. I'll try Garth again, first." Dean's breathy. A little disbelieving. "How come we never did this before? Tried to pull the demon blood out of him? Shit, I mean, it could have saved us so much fucking grief," he looks a little amazed at the prospect.

"Heaven wouldn't have allowed it. For all the time they were involved, at least," Cas points out. "And even after Zachariah, Michael, Raphael, all of them, were no longer a factor. Well, then you had other problems on your hands."

"We never even _tried_ , though," Dean protests.

"For all we know, it's what kept the trials from killing Sam outright, Dean. That was my point. Perhaps it's the demon blood being cleansed out of him. Perhaps _that part_ of him will be killed off, but not his entire. Um. Being? Life?"

"Yeah, but no. No, we should try this first."

"I hate to admit it, but we should probably question Crowley. If the other demons haven't found him and destroyed him by now."

"It's been days," Dean says.

Cas shrugs. He could live very well indeed without ever seeing that rat again. But. "It is worth it to question him. For Sam's sake."

Dean can only nod in agreement. "Yeah. I should go. Try to find him, at least."

"You've been out all day. And the past several days. You should sleep and eat first." Cas only says it because Dean looks like he's fading around the edges a little and is therefore open to influence. It looks like he might listen for once.

Dean frowns at first and straightens like he means to leave right away. Cas decides to head him off.

"May I have the keys? I'll go get Sam's laptop from the car. I can start researching. Eat something, at least, Dean."

Dean is so solid. So determined. Living like this, Cas thinks, isn't going to be easy. Once upon a time he could give Dean a deep, healthy rest with a simple touch. Now he must cajole. He must use the right words.

Dean looks between the kitchen and the steps to the entryway. It's when he finally looks at Cas's hand, flat atop the books he'd stacked, that he hands the keys over and then heads to the kitchen.

«»

Of course, Dean only allows himself until 7 a.m. to sleep. He gets up fresh, though, and cooks a breakfast for the both of them, makes new coffee, showers, puts on clean clothes. Cas wakes up soon after from his doze on one of the plush chairs to the smell of food. 

Dean explains the plan while he shoves bacon in his face. "You need some more food here. If there's anything you want besides friggin' Zebra Cakes, write it down. I'll get us some groceries. So then, you keep up with the research and man the phone for Sammy while I'm gone. I'm gonna go check on him one more time, tell him what we're working on, and then I'll head back up to find Crowley. Hopefully he's still locked up there. If I can't track him down easy, I'll just come back and we'll work on it without him.

"Truthfully," he says, chewing on things all the while, "I'd rather have him in our back pocket. You know. Just in case."

"In case it doesn't work," Cas completes the thought. In case they have to try reversing the trials instead.

Dean nods, though reluctantly. "I probably shouldn't have just left him out there. But guys were falling all around us. Sam was down. In pain. And I just wanted to get out of there."

"And Kevin was nowhere to be found when you arrived?" Cas asks.

Dean snorts. "The bunker was all lit up, but he was long gone. And then I couldn't wake Sammy up again. Then I _had_ to get him to the hospital. There wasn't another option."

Dean hates that. Cas can tell. He wants to be able to always take care of Sam on his own. He loathes the hospital and its staff for no good reason. Other than the fact that they won't allow Dean to live in that hospital room with his brother the whole time.

Cas doesn't point out the fact that Kevin might also be able to help in their research. It feels too obvious. And, as far as Dean is concerned, it was likely much too harsh an abandonment for him to want to speak of.

"I should get you a car," Dean muses after a while. "In case Sam needs you. I mean, there's no time for it right now. I'm just gonna shag ass outta the state and if I can't find Crowley, I'll be right back. I don't like leaving him there, but I know Sam's alright at the hospital. I'd just rather have him here. But I could boost you something later. Now that you're driving and all."

Dean seems so pleased with that fact. It's not as if driving were _flying_ , Cas thinks. Pedals and keys and gasoline are nothing compared to the immensity of intangible, interdimensional wings and keeping a grip on a vessel while you're utilizing them. He's thankful for cars, now that he's in this human form. They got him back to Kansas. But they're not overly complicated machines to operate. Cas recalls from his own road trip that they let the worst kind of blind fools drive any day of the week.

Cas cleans up breakfast while Dean goes into town for the groceries. They'd had leftovers and Cas carefully saves them, not completely trusting himself to cook in Dean's kitchen yet. It seems to please Dean to keep the area clean and organized. He had asked him to pick up things for sandwiches, easy things and cereals, and yes, the snack cakes he'd come to appreciate. These simple food items also seem more conducive to working on research. Cas doesn't want to ruin the books at all.

«»

Castiel wonders why he's hungry again so soon. He flattens out the book in front of him and tries to focus, tries to ignore it. When he finally gives in and checks a clock, he realizes that Dean's been gone for much too long. Several hours. He said he'd come back with the groceries before setting out for Sam, and then out to find Crowley.

It couldn't take three hours to get groceries. It couldn't possibly, could it?

He knows it, then. Instantly. Something must have happened to Sam.

He's not sure why he needs to, but he really feels compelled to check outside. Cas slips on his beaten old shoes and heads for the front door. He props it open so it doesn't completely lock behind him and he walks up to the road outside the complex.

All is quiet. There's the sound of very far distant life. The diminished echo of planes and cars and irrigation systems on farms. There are the birds and there's the wind.

Cas stands there breathing it in for a moment before he heads back inside.

He feels compelled, too, to walk the rooms. To check that nothing is amiss indoors. Down here, everything is rather unnaturally quiet. It's the quiet that comes from putting so many layers, both of stone and of written wards, between this place and the outside world.

It's been another half hour and now his stomach is too mixed up for food. Should he call?

Or what if Sam had called when he'd stepped outside? Or when he was down further into the bunker, in the gun range?

He decides to call Sam. It rings but doesn't pick up. He can't think of what to say, what message to leave, after the tone tells him to. "It's um. Castiel. I was supposed to hear from Dean over two hours ago. I haven't." He cringes. "I don't mean to panic you. But please call back here when you get this message, Sam." He can't think of anything else and so he hangs up.

At the very least, Dean needs to know that Sam didn't answer his phone.

He doesn't know why this makes him somewhat nervous. He is sure he's not worrying for no reason at all. He's _positive_ that there is cause for concern. It's just that, what he feels right now, with the random wandering and the standing listening for nothing. It simply escapes him how he's _supposed_ to be reacting to this. It's like human emotions and instincts are emerging in him which he'd flat-out ignored or observed but never felt.

He misdials twice and has to hang up and pick up the phone a third time. When the call goes through to Dean's phone, there's the command to leave a message and then nothing. Again.

"You said that you would be back. It's been over two hours. I'm concerned. Sam didn't pick up when I called him. Please, Dean," he sighs, "you have to let me know what's going on." He tries to think of what he'll do if he doesn't get a call back, what to tell Dean his next step is. He's got nothing. So he hangs up.

In all this time he could have continued working on the research. He feels badly about eating up that time. Sam is relying on him. But Sam could also be in more immediate danger. He could sit down and keep reading. But how? How with this feeling weighing down his guts?

He gets a drink of water, but that doesn't help the tension. Now the anxiety in him is just _swimming_.

Over the sink, he's leaning. Watching the edge of the empty glass. (Dean.) Closing his eyes.

You have to tell me what's going on. You have to let me know. You have to call. I have to hear the phone ring. I need to know that Sam's okay. I need to know you're fighting for him or if you need my help.

(In the car, Dean's not driving. There's no one behind the wheel and he's not actually in the car, either. Cas is kneeling on the ground lifting the floor mats. Looking for what's not there.)

What's not there is anything to speak these worries to. No phones that will answer.

No God who will answer.

Cas pushes away from the counter. He feeds the gnawing ache in his stomach one of his last snack cakes and can't finish the other in the package. It doesn't make him feel good.

He puts it back in his coat pocket and tosses the coat back onto the bed he'd used the day before.

When the trench coat hits the mattress, it clinks slightly. The few nickels and dimes and quarters he'd had from his journey back to Kansas jarring against the hilt of the angel blade.

He goes back to the jacket and digs all of the coins out of the pockets. He checks the pockets of the pants that he's wearing, just in case, though they're empty, clean.

He'd seen some coins on Dean's dresser in his room. He collects them. Then he's looking everywhere. 

He finds all kinds of stray coins. It's certainly not enough. Not good enough. He decides Dean can be angry at him later. He will confess to it right away.

Cas digs through Dean's jackets and clothes, his bags and drawers. He finds whole dollars. Actual money.

He can ask forgiveness for this, too. The Internet will tell him what number to use to call a cab.

He opens Dean's laptop and presses the largest button. It doesn't turn on. He presses other buttons. Nothing turns it on. It must be out of power. He searches for a cord. And can't find one.

Castiel gets so frustrated he just kind of makes a noise. It's low and growling and kind of hissing, too. He's stuck. He can't pay someone to drive him to the--

Hospital.

Yes. 911. It's for emergencies. He can call them and they will come in an ambulance and this ambulance will take him to the hospital where Sam is. Of course. They have those everywhere.

He picks up the phone and is on the point of calling the emergency number when he decides first to try Sam again.

Same result.

He tries Dean's phone once more. This time it doesn't even allow a message. It doesn't go through.

He hangs up and is about to dial 911 and he hears an echo down the front corridor.

"Dean?" he shouts.

There's a moment of hurried footfalls. "Cas."

Dean looks like he's been running. He stops at the top of the stairs when he sees Castiel. He stops and heaves a breath and he sort of leans over, bracing his hands on his thighs. "Geeze, man."

Cas hangs up the phone.

They meet at the bottom of the stairs. "What happened?" Cas asks. "You were gone. I. I called Sam. Sam didn't pick up, Dean. Is he alright?" He watches Dean lean over again just to breathe now that they're on the same floor. "Are _you_ alright?"

"Yeah," Dean flops a hand and rises again. "Yeah. We're alright. Uh. How're you?" His smile is really odd.

Cas just decides to stand there and look as bewildered as he feels.

"Right. Uh. Had a run-in."

Dean's breath is slowing, but Cas prompts him. " _With?_ "

"Uh. Sam called. Jesus, I need a drink." They walk slowly in the direction of the kitchen while Dean calms down. 

Cas hovers close while Dean has some water and starts the coffeemaker again. When Dean finally turns to address him, he knows he's too close. Dean tries to back further against the counter. "C'mon. Cas. Seriously."

Cas relents, backs up a little. "Run in?" he prompts again.

Dean sighs. "Yeah. I was heading into the grocery store and Sam called. He'd heard a fight-- well. He thought he heard people fighting outside, down his hall. And he couldn't get too far to see. So I told him to get under the fucking bed and he wouldn't he just wouldn't. And he goes to the door and by then there are people trying to get into his hall with the nurses all fighting them and his doctor, too, and them calling the cops and shit. So I'm hauling ass, right? By the time I make it there, there are more cops and they're up against these two guys and this girl. Uh. This woman."

By the way Dean's eyes go, Cas can read the implications. Some woman. Some incredibly attractive woman.

"They're fighting everybody tooth and nail to get inside and when I get there, hah." Dean laughs. Looks amazed. "They go _batshit_." He shakes his head. "So I'm listening to these guys talk-- well. Scream at me and shit. They don't sound like your average demon. They're so, I donno. Weirdly formal. And like. Kind of. Well. They talk like you used to talk?"

"Formal?"

"Yeah. Like they had no idea what was going on, they just had a _mission_ , you know?"

It clicks for Castiel in that instant.  
A mission.

"Angels."

"Yeah. Your bros. And, uh, a sister."

The quiet builds between them for a minute. All they hear is the coffee machine chugging and hissing.

"Sam is alright," Cas says, just wanting to confirm again.

Dean's smile grows small, but genuine. "Yeah, Cas. He's alright. They were fighters. Musta been soldiers like you. At least the two guys. The girl, it seemed like she was the mastermind. Between me and the cops we got the two guys knocked out and cuffed and sent away. The girl went down easy. They were filling out paperwork so before the cops hauled her off I got her to stop trying to bite my face off long enough to ask. Um. Prin-- principality?" He says, unsure. "Second class?"

Cas closes his eyes and rubs them. Principalities, he thinks with an inner sneer he can't push down.

"They're like muses. They inspire. They bring arts and sciences, provoke ideas."

"Ah," Dean says. "So not a soldier. Just _inspiring_ the other guys to use what they know to get us."

"Three of them," Cas says.

"Yeah," Dean's eyes go wide. He turns and grabs his mug and goes to rinse it out. "She said something about that, too. She says, they, uh. They found each other. You haven't heard from any of them?"

"Heard from them?" Cas asks.

"Yeah. She said." Dean stops and fills his mug with coffee. He doesn't drink it. He sets it back down. "She said they prayed and they found each other. That they prayed _to_ each other to find their brothers and sisters and that they did. You haven't heard from them?" he asks again.

Castiel shakes his head. "No. Though, I must admit, I wouldn't. Pray to them, I mean. I would not attempt to." He thinks about it and there's no good way to put this. "They would want me dead more than they want you dead for helping me. And not all of them care who you are. They all know who I am."

"And they _do care_ ," Dean completes his thought.

Cas nods in grave agreement.

"Shouldn't Sam come home?" Cas asks, blinking at Dean. "He shouldn't be alone. Not many of them could have been close enough to see where you two were going, but when those three are released from jail they could bring others. Or perhaps, if prayer still serves them, they could disseminate your whereabouts by thought. I had no idea it would still work that way between us, but that makes it very dangerous for Sam. Alone like that."

"Yeah," Dean agrees with another deep breath. "But there's an officer at the hospital now I guess. And those guys aren't getting out for at least 72 hours."

"I couldn't get _you or Sam_ on the phone," he's genuinely distressed. "Sam should come home."

For some reason Dean only smiles. Cas could hit him in his face for that. He backs away so he's less tempted.

"He'll come home. He's not as bad as he was. He's got more fluids in him, more food. Painkillers. We'll bring him home in a few hours and it'll probably be like before. I told him about the reading you're doing and he perked right up. He'll have something to focus on and he'll feel better."

Good. Alright. Cas can work with that. "I'll get the materials together for the first cleansing ritual I've worked out. We'll do it as soon as he's released. Then you can go look for Crowley. At least Sam will be safe here while you're gone."

Dean smiles again and Cas just doesn't get it. This situation doesn't feel smile-worthy to Castiel. In fact, it's barely tolerable. Him being shut up in here while the violent, angry brothers he used to fight beside are out hunting them down, looking to blame someone for their fall.

"Sam will be good with you here," Dean finally confirms. "He'll be fine. We'll work it out."

In the quiet of the kitchen these words sound a lot like absolute truth. Like Dean has faith in Castiel. There's nothing more jarring.

Cas shakes himself minutely to get some of that to slip from his skin. He can't feel that right now. It doesn't fit. Not after everything. And it collides with what he was feeling not five minutes ago. The desperation of it, the need to get word or to go and fight. To make sure they were okay. He just needed them to be okay.

He doesn't offer up explanation, just goes back into the library like he can actually do anything there. He supposes he should start checking off ingredients, preparing sigils for a cleansing. Instead he sits back down in front of his book and closes his eyes.

In the dark, now, he goes to the place where he can be calm. The place where he fits. He's in the seat of a car-- no. Not just any car. He's in the passenger seat of the Impala, closer to Dean, in the driver's seat, than reality would dictate. The car isn't actually that small inside, in real life. But he leaves this Dean who is acting strangely and doesn't fit, and within himself he finds Dean in the driver's seat, reaching for his hand and drawing him close while he keeps his eyes on the road. There's no road outside the car for Cas. He's in the car with Dean and they're going to get Sam and inside the car is the noise of the road and of their shoulders brushing as they sit close.

He sees it until he is calm. Until he knows that Dean is right. That it will work out. That they'll fight, even if it's not all alright.

When he opens his eyes, he sees the book in front of him on the table. And he raises his head and looks up a bit. Dean is there, at the corner of the table, next to him. Shaking his head.

"Fuck." Dean makes that incredibly tired gesture where he rubs his hand roughly over his forehead and into his eyes and then pulls it down his face. " _Cas_. You've. Man. This has _gotta_ stop."

He sounds angry. Another 180 from how happy he was acting just a few minutes ago. Castiel isn't exactly sure what he's done to deserve it. "Stop?" he asks.

Dean lets his head drop and shakes it and when he looks back up there's something there Cas can't read exactly. It looks like tired mixed with angry mixed with sad. "I can hear you," Dean says. Which is all the warning he gets before Dean pulls him up by the arms and is shoving him against a bookshelf. "I can hear it. All of it. I wasn't sure it was you at first but every time you're closer it's clearer. It's happening _right here_ ," Dean lets go and moves his hand around indicating the now-small space between them. "It's just like with the angels. And it's the most awful shit I've ever fucking heard, Cas. Don't you think I've got enough of this self-recrimination bullshit in my head? Enough for _ten people_. And when it's not you thinking you're incapable of everything, it's you--" Dean's jaw snaps shut, keeps clenched closed like he doesn't even want these poisonous words in the air.

And then the space between them has disappeared. Castiel feels the prickly press of Dean's cheek against his own. Dean presses his face against Cas's, then moves it a few times, like he can't decide if it should be happening but _it's happening_ and he intends to find where he _fits_. He presses his cheek to Cas's forehead, his nose into Cas's neck, his mouth to the side of Cas's hair, above his ear. He speaks next with his mouth against the skin of Castiel's temple.

"Mostly it's just _you_ \-- y-you _praying_. Praying your _faith_ at me. Cas." Castiel feels Dean inhale hugely against the top of his head. His body moves in and it isn't just his hands pressing Cas to the wall. Chest-to-chest, hands-to-hips. "You're praying to me for anything, for everything, for what I _know_ , for guidance. And then you pray at me how much you," Dean swallows, says it deeply, but not unkindly, " _cherish_ me. How much you _need_ me? _Fuck._ FUCK. How am I supposed to hear that and not want this? Want peace? You're in my head and you're looking for _peace_."

His fingers press into Cas's body before his arms move around him, pulling him away from the wall and into the heat of Dean's body. Cas lifts his arms to pull at Dean's shoulders, feeling a little numb, mentally. Like he's hearing things from a distance while his body itself burns with the grip Dean has on it.

"I heard you trying to call Sammy. Call me. I heard you losing it and I drove the fuck home. I just couldn't hear that and let you think--"

"I'm sorry," is all Cas can think of to say. "I wouldn't have been so-- I. I didn't know you could hear it. You're not supposed to hear it. I can't hear my brothers. I've got nothing to pray to. Everything's left from here. There's nothing I wanted to pray to--"

"Except for me. You had faith in me. You're not about to apologize for _needing_ me, Cas," he almost bites the words into Castiel's neck, breath falling hot. Like it's about fucking time that Cas should feel what Dean has felt since he made it clear that he needed Cas. Like this is what he deserves, like it's payback. His words say this is what Cas gets for taking so long to discover that on his own. His hands say he couldn't fucking _wait_. They hold so tightly and Dean has his chin hooked over Cas's shoulder. They're flush, so close, stress thrumming through the hold Dean's got on him. Fierce. Not letting go.

The first is a wet press, almost to the back of his neck, before Dean's lips are suddenly travelling forward on his jaw and his hold loosens only to bring his lips to Cas's own. He brings both his hands up to the back of Castiel's head and moves him into place and kisses into his mouth for a long moment. When he pulls away to gauge if it was okay, he must see the loss of understanding on Cas's face. He knows he did not come into this moment fully prepared. This is not lust. Cas tastes his own lips and this isn't even what lust _tastes like_. It's what _Dean_ tastes like. It's like what he's wanted and the closeness he's needed forever now.

"It's okay, Cas, c'mon. I'll be it. I'll be your prayer. When you need something to pray to, I'll answer you, every time," he breathes, gasps, kisses. "Every single fucking time," he says in the press against Castiel's mouth, "I will answer you. You come to me. _I will answer you_."

It's then that his mouth catches up. It's then that he kisses and kisses back, hard and steady, speaking Dean's language.

Castiel's hands rush down and across Dean's body, feeling for the solidity of it. His eyes are closed against the kisses they're pressing into each other and he knows now that all he's feeling, the confused jumble of it, the heated rush of it, the human _lust_ of it, is slipping past his thoughts and into Dean's. Now that he knows what to listen for, he waits for the response.

(There you are.)

Dean, in the dark of Cas's closed eyes, is tighter, almost mixed up with him, their edges whisping out of existence where they press together. Stay together. And he can hear how much Dean fears this. How much he doesn't want all that faith to fall into his hands; he doesn't think he carries the wisdom for guidance. But Cas has already been following him for _so long_.

When Dean's body begins to pull away from him, Cas doesn't let the prayer go. He opens his eyes knowing Dean can't slip away from him. Wanting Dean to know he's not going anywhere, either.

"Not a good idea right now," Dean says, low and roughened. "This is. This is sort of a post-fight high kind of thing. And you just. You, Cas. Being there." He shakes his head.

"I'll _be here_ for a while," Cas smiles a little. "I'll be here."

When Dean's hands leave Castiel's body, his tongue darts out to wet his lips again and behind it is a notion, coming across the line, bridging their thoughts with the merest whisper. He tastes Cas there and doesn't regret it. Can't help but like it. It feels like trouble, like setting himself up for getting hurt again. It echoes of all the times he's thought Cas died, and sweeps up behind him like (shouldn't have done that).

Castiel reaches for him then, to just press his palms to the sides of Dean's head, card his fingers through his hair just once.

He looks Dean in the eyes and then shuts his own. He prays about kitchen tables. He prays to keep Sam safe. He prays about loose change in sock drawers. He prays to surround themselves with allies, the spirits of old friends if they can't make new ones. He prays for fixing Sam. He prays for the key ring that holds the way into the Impala. He prays for leftovers in the fridge. For Dean steadying Castiel's hands on a gun in the range downstairs. For the revelation of an empty backseat with Cas sitting shotgun, riding away downstate to see Sam and his dogs.

When Cas prays to the tape deck in the dashboard, his fingers turning a knob, seeking volume, Dean is there again, and pulls his hand from the dial and (the driver picks the music), he hears. He feels Dean's arms come around his back again, Dean's head resting against his shoulder. (You know that, Cas) and hands folded around each other for as many miles as they can drive until the next inevitable disaster.

(At least until then.)

«»

Things are slow in the days after Sam comes home. Dean doesn't leave again right away, but he does leave to go find Crowley after Cas tries his hand at a second cleansing ritual.

Most the time Sam rests. Between books and research, Cas has the Internet and news websites and things don't look so good. Stories keep cropping up. Celestial events are spoken of. There are not enough witnesses, only a few grainy YouTube uploads. There are new _people_ everywhere, however, finding each other and forming into dangerous little groups.

The words in some of the stories, the strange names these people give themselves, they sometimes rush through Cas like a little panic. The landline will ring a while later and Dean will be calling in with a status report. Still no Crowley. Still on the trail. Hearing some scary shit about Abaddon on the rise. And a not-so-subtle inquiry about what news Cas has read.

The connection isn't magical. It's logic.

They all fell with these endless eons of knowledge still intact. Their brains are just running on high power. They have an expanded wealth of knowledge. Their minds are simply too used to prayer working for it to have instantly ceased working.

It's not communication with the same immediacy as it used to be. It's not like coming across the correct station on the dial and suddenly hearing angels chatter. It's more like mental text messaging, with the occasional picture or video link. It's not so strong at great distance, either, but Dean admits it's enough to stop his heart a little each time.

When it had started happening, he simply thought he was wishing too hard. He knew, all over again, that Cas was dead. That there was no hope. In those moments he was more sure that he heard Cas, it was harder to let it go.

He tells Castiel it was too sweet to let go. Too much of a promise. Too good to be true.

Dean can't stay on the hunt for too long. He's anxious about Sam's health and returns after the trail leading away from the old church goes cold. When he returns, he talks haltingly to Sam about starting to search for Kevin and Garth.

Dean won't say it but Cas can feel the words beneath the conversation without looking for them: Every time someone leaves or can't be found, it feels like being rejected, abandoned. Dean thinks there's a chance that the research leading to their lost friends will end in finding them and then in an outright rejection of Dean's family, the whole situation, and ultimately himself.

That evening, Dean reaches out. Like he's always reaching out, no matter how far afield people stray from him.

Dean sits on the edge of his bed. He prays like Cas does. Sitting still, eyes closed, looking for the right images, looking for peace.

It draws Cas out of the spare room and down the hall.

When Dean opens his eyes, Castiel stands before him, naked feet on the floor of their home. He pulls Cas forward, presses his head into Castiel's belly. In bed that night, they close their eyes and seek peace in these prayers together.

**Author's Note:**

> Written mostly to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YiK23BYLAQ) and [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yedD4JsZyT0) and title from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZu3hP4lNpA).


End file.
